Choices by Tess Gallagher

I love this poem, and as Janice says, it is the kind of poem that invites us to think more deeply about our choices, and to see the connections, delicately connecting everything.

Heart Poems

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.

Choices

This is the kind of poem that invites me to read slowly and read again. I like it for its haiku-like simplicity – not many words but capable of expressing what most of us would require many words to say.

I suppose on the surface, when she sees a nest clutched in / the uppermost branches, it could just be about the value of nests and the birds they harbour. But I hear so much more about choices we make that may have effects we do not…

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By Way Of The Interruptions – A Christmas Sermon On Luke 2:1-20

It is so true, the moments of “something new” breaking into our lives, which may seem like an interruption… wonderful reflection!

Interrupting the Silence

Christmas Eve – Luke 2:1-20

It began about nine months ago. Life was interrupted when the unexpected and unimaginable happened. And I wondered, “How can this be?” Life was changing and things were getting too real too quick. The government issued travel decrees. Some family, friends, and businesses closed to us and said, “No, you can’t come in.” So much has changed. Things just aren’t like they used to be. They probably never will be. It feels like it’s been one interruption after another.

You know what I’m talking about, right? I’m sure you do. It’s not too hard to figure it out. It’s in the air. It’s all around us.

You know, don’t you, that I’m talking about Mary? I’m talking about what she might have thought about the past nine months of her life. I’m talking about the first Christmas. That is what you thought I was talking…

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the perfect reflection for ADVENT

BY DANIEL BERRIGAN

Entering Advent In Hope – Fr. Daniel Berrigan

By Thomas Good – Thomas Good / Next Left Notes, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

“It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss—
This is true: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction—
This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.

It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever—
This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.

It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world—
This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world.

It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the Church before we can be peacemakers—
This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall have dreams.

It is not true that our hopes for liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history—
This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth.

So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope. Let us see visions of love and peace and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage: Jesus Christ—the life of the world.”

Daniel Berrigan, Testimony: The Word Made Flesh (Orbis Books, 2004).